Given the hot weather, I have been pulling out some of the sandwich recipes I had filed away. Was thinking about looking around for a panini press at the thrift store/garage sales...then realized my waffle iron has plates that can be turned over to be flat grill plates. Worked great!

We were going to take my dad downtown to hit a couple breweries and then get dinner. Then we decided that it would be better to pick up take out instead. Then I checked the tofu in the fridge and saw that it would expire while I'm out of town this week, so I turned it into a nice curry with other ingredients that probably would have gone bad in my absence. Probably $40 saved not to mention gas and wasted food!

Today was another travel day for me. Filled my water bottle after going through airport security, and also discovered that one of the coffee shops near the gate only charges $1 for a coffee refill if you bring your own mug. Brought homegrown raspberries and a Quest bar instead of eating lunch, and felt smug sitting next to someone with a big iced coffee, bottled water and sandwich from the airport Starbuck's, which probably put her out $15 total vs. my $3 for the Quest bar and the coffee.

Spent the weekend away but stayed with a good mate, so accommodation was free.

If I'd been at home I would have tried to resist the temptation to put the heater on, but my friend had his fire roaring away all weekend so I made the most of it. (I spent so long laying in front of the fire reading that he brought me a pillow so I could really get comfy. :) )

Ran a few errands for my mum, including a trip to a discount pharmacist which saved her $65. She gave me $50 to say thank you. I resisted, telling her I did it to save her money, not make money. "Yes, but you're a busy girl", said while poking money in the pocket of my jeans.

Today was another travel day for me. Filled my water bottle after going through airport security, and also discovered that one of the coffee shops near the gate only charges $1 for a coffee refill if you bring your own mug. Brought homegrown raspberries and a Quest bar instead of eating lunch, and felt smug sitting next to someone with a big iced coffee, bottled water and sandwich from the airport Starbuck's, which probably put her out $15 total vs. my $3 for the Quest bar and the coffee.

I like that you can bring your mug and get the 1$ coffee refill;I will keep it in mind for our next travel

Today we gleaned mulberries, bought a used bike in great shape, made soup in the crockpot, sold 2 pairs of athletic shoes

Thought to ask for the washer and dryer in our home offer, which was accepted. Now we can sell our current washer and dryer before the move- it'll be an upgrade, and save on the difficulty of moving them.

Grabbed drinks with friends, but both DH and I picked something on tap (much cheaper than their cocktails) and closed after 1 apiece. Our bill was $12 with tip- our friends were probably about $32. Just an interesting moment to realize that, two years ago, that would have been us as well. Had just as much enjoyment from our one drink though.

Sometimes things all come together. Drove to a town close by that had a dollar store. The one I used to go to, which was right across from the discount grocery store - oh so convenient - closed. So I am unfamiliar with the area and it turns out it's all metered parking anywhere near the dollar store. So I had to walk about 3/4 of a mile but I was going to walk for exercise anyway today. Plus it's an area where students and eccentrics tend to live so the people watching was fun.

I get to Family Dollar and what is right across the street, but Goodwill, and they are having a sale, all adult clothing for $1. I don't come across Goodwill very often so maybe this is normal. Anyway, I need a pair of jeans b/c the current ones are falling apart, past patching. I found a pair of longs, which are very hard to come by. I couldn't try them on without taking off my shorts but I figured for $1 risk I'd take them. Got them home and they fit!!

On the off chance someone from MA reads this, it's the Goodwill on Elm St. in Somerville, Davis Square.

Got $7 worth of hand soap and hair conditioner at Family Dollar and lugged it all back to the car. That is absolutely the way to shop at the dollar store - keeping in mind that you have to carry whatever you buy a long distance. I stuck to my list.

On the off chance someone from MA reads this, it's the Goodwill on Elm St. in Somerville, Davis Square.

Got $7 worth of hand soap and hair conditioner at Family Dollar and lugged it all back to the car. That is absolutely the way to shop at the dollar store - keeping in mind that you have to carry whatever you buy a long distance. I stuck to my list.

Where I used to live (on the other Elm Street, in Cambridge, coincidentally!) the Family Dollar was the closest store of any kind to my apartment. It was so great for all kinds of heavy/bulky stuff at cheap prices: laundry detergent, gallons of water, all kinds of cleaning supplies, toiletries, toilet paper, etc.

I didn't realize how much I'd miss it when I moved... no one lists "Family Dollar around the corner" as an amenity when listing apartments :-)

Spent the evening at rehearsal for the community orchestra I'm in. It's free to be a member, sometimes I get comp tickets for family/friends, and I'm learning lots of great music. Our last concert was at a garden/museum, so I also got to poke around the grounds and museum for free before the concert. This is also a much better group than I've played with recently, and I can already hear my own playing improving.

On my fourth day of scraping toothpaste out of a cut up tube to get the last bits.

Breakfast included raspberries from our huge patch (grown up from a few canes I got on Freecycle years ago).

Today I'm picking up a box of Cooks Illustrated from Freecyle, so I can feed my cooking magazine habit for free. :)

Our car's head gasket blew. The dealership quoted $1800 to fix it. Husband researched and found that our car has a head gasket problem and they often blow earlier than expected. He went back to the dealership with this info and haggled them from $1800 down to $900 on the grounds that this should not have happened this soon.

Cooked breakfast at home using what we had instead of going grocery shoppingContinue to eat free fruit gifted by the neighbors (left for vacation)Brewing tea at home and at work to cut back on Starbucks stopsCut open an old hand cream container and used the remnants after my shower.

My dad has a little garden and the little tomatoes are just coming in. While visiting this weekend we picked a huge tupperware basket full. We typically spend $6/week on these tomatoes. Hopefully this will last us 2 weeks. (Saved $12)Before buying an air compressor accessory at a local hardware store, I googled for a coupon while in line and saved 20%! (Saved $4)My daughter needs new noslip socks and my wife found 5 pair online for $13. I challenged her to look for a better price and she found a 4-pack for $4! (Saved $9)

I needed to take my care for scheduled maintenance, and the dealership offers the annual state inspection for free. It wasn't due until next month, but I saved $9 by getting it done a few weeks early.

Little man ran out of diapers. We've been going through disposables a lot faster than normal lately since the rubber pants for cloth seem to give him heat rash. 2 jumbo boxes of the Target brand, 10% off with the app, and a $10 gift card for next time for buying two boxes.

I've been getting a little bit creative to make it to payday without buying groceries and use up some of what we have on hand. We made cake mix cookies last night (1 box cake mix, 1/2 cup oil, two eggs, bake 12-14 minutes at 350* F). Lunch was a new recipe for black bean and lentil salad that a friend shared on Pinterest last week.

I've bought nothing at work the past two days, I've been bringing my lunch and using the new coffee machine at work instead of buying coffee. If I keep this up I should be able to save $25-$40 a week on coffee alone!

First words I heard from DH this morning were "Did you see the flood? There's water everywhere!" I immediately thought, "Oh god, do we have some kind of cursed sprinkler system?" I thought I had FINALLY capped off two fussy sprinklers that regularly broke and sprayed water for hours--and I did! The flood in question is a broken water main down the street. We are in a severe drought here, so after getting the kids off to school I grabbed a bucket and hauled many gallons of water out of the street to our frontyard fruit trees. Met a new neighbor to boot!

Also:* Harvested two tiny chilis and the whole garlic crop and found a couple more potatoes while I was at it.* Breakfast was eggs laid by our backyard chickens, and from my mom's trees, an avocado smashed up with Maldon sea salt.

Instead of buying one, I asked if he wanted to re-use my 20 year-old Jansport from college.He's so proud to use my old backpack.

That's so cute!

Nothing ground-breaking for me today. Same routine--pack lunch, snacks, and breakfast. Make tea at work. Last night I did make a chocolate, peanut better granola bar-ish thing for on the go snacking. Bars are so expensive, so I'm experimenting making my own.

There are a lot of little free libraries in my neighbourhood. I pass a couple on my walking route.Today I found an interesting book that I took with me to read.I'm almost finished another book so I'll bring it there and put it in the library tomorrow.

Last night, I saved money by being too damn lazy to leave the house. I had delicious cheese spread but no crackers to put it on so I looked through my recipe book and found a very simple recipe for 'water crackers'. Thirty minutes later - done!

1 cup of flour, 30g of butter. Rub butter into flour. Add water bit by bit until it forms a stiff dough. Roll out to 1cm thick, then take small bits and roll them out into very thin rounds. Bake in hot oven (over 200 degrees Celsius) for approx. 10 minutes or until golden brown and puffy.

by saving a mason jar of leftover paint three years ago, I saved the expense of repainting a room. We changed out some furniture and there was a huge scrape on the wall. If we had not kept the touch up paint, we would have had to repaint the whole room.

The local grocery store was doing subsidized compost bins for earth day, and we picked ours up today. 30$ (cheaper by far than we could buy or make elsewhere) and t means that we can use our own scraps in the garden instead of sending them to the town compost. Win!

So this is a little money saving that I sowed and am now reaping. During the caucus this spring in my state, I met a dude who has a lot of fruit trees, vines, etc, but does not eat all of them himself. I gave him my number and today he called me out to get some plums. I left with probably 1.5 gallons of plums, .5 gal of marrion berries, some frozen plums and tomatoes from last year, some chard and some arugula. We eat a lot of fruit so this is a huge boon, and I expect it will continue over the summer- he's a really great retired guy who likes gardening a lot. It's all organic and not at all buggy, and it's just so tasty.

Last night, I saved money by being too damn lazy to leave the house. I had delicious cheese spread but no crackers to put it on so I looked through my recipe book and found a very simple recipe for 'water crackers'. Thirty minutes later - done!

1 cup of flour, 30g of butter. Rub butter into flour. Add water bit by bit until it forms a stiff dough. Roll out to 1cm thick, then take small bits and roll them out into very thin rounds. Bake in hot oven (over 200 degrees Celsius) for approx. 10 minutes or until golden brown and puffy.

Next time, I'm going to add cumin for yummy herbed crackers.

Yes! Someone else appreciates that you can be too lazy to leave the house (really, I have to get dressed and talk to people?) but totally content to cook.

Last night, I saved money by being too damn lazy to leave the house. I had delicious cheese spread but no crackers to put it on so I looked through my recipe book and found a very simple recipe for 'water crackers'. Thirty minutes later - done!

1 cup of flour, 30g of butter. Rub butter into flour. Add water bit by bit until it forms a stiff dough. Roll out to 1cm thick, then take small bits and roll them out into very thin rounds. Bake in hot oven (over 200 degrees Celsius) for approx. 10 minutes or until golden brown and puffy.

Next time, I'm going to add cumin for yummy herbed crackers.

Yes! Someone else appreciates that you can be too lazy to leave the house (really, I have to get dressed and talk to people?) but totally content to cook.

Homemade herbed water crackers sound amazing. :)

Yes, this! I used to live a block from the grocery store and even then, between baking bread or walking there to get it, baking usually won. What, you want me to put on PANTS? On a WEEKEND??

Allllmost caved and got Starbucks on the way to work, but didn't. Then alllllmost caved and got a smoothie at the place down the block. Also didn't. It was the calories that swayed me, not the money aspect, but savings is savings.

Last night, I saved money by being too damn lazy to leave the house. I had delicious cheese spread but no crackers to put it on so I looked through my recipe book and found a very simple recipe for 'water crackers'. Thirty minutes later - done!

1 cup of flour, 30g of butter. Rub butter into flour. Add water bit by bit until it forms a stiff dough. Roll out to 1cm thick, then take small bits and roll them out into very thin rounds. Bake in hot oven (over 200 degrees Celsius) for approx. 10 minutes or until golden brown and puffy.

Next time, I'm going to add cumin for yummy herbed crackers.

Yes! Someone else appreciates that you can be too lazy to leave the house (really, I have to get dressed and talk to people?) but totally content to cook.

Homemade herbed water crackers sound amazing. :)

+1

I recently got a tortilla press, and my dad mentioned that he uses his to make crackers. So I will totally be making fancy nut-based crackers on a regular basis now. $4-5 for a box of crackers always seems like a ripoff.

Hubby was using our only car to attend a band rehearsal all day Saturday. My boys (4 & 6) were invited to birthday party at a school pool 3km ( and a huge hill away). In the past I have used a taxi thinking it's cheaper than a second car. But it was a beautiful winters day so we scootered there. It took us an hour to get there but felt like an awesome adventure. My boys were thrilled to find a dollar, a perfectly good lemon and some nails we could use for a project on the way. And that was even before the party started!

My boys were thrilled to find a dollar, a perfectly good lemon and some nails we could use for a project on the way. And that was even before the party started!

Love it when walks turn into a profitable adventure!

I've been looking for a used push mower as part of our ongoing effort to intentionally unplug our household as much as possible. Went to an estate sale today and found a nice one in good condition. Got it for the price I'd wanted, along with a game and two vintage record albums for the kids, plus a stack of cloth napkins for our collection of reusable cloth linens.

-Bed frameI got a fantastic bed frame for free through Buy Nothing Project. Beautiful white metal, in great condition. The lady was delighted to see it go- she doesn't have a car, and it had been sitting inside by her door for a couple months. Win win for both of us!

-Grocery Coupon Realized the back of a business card I had gotten from a grocery store manager was a $3 off coupon (not applicable to booze or dairy though, haha). Still need to use this, but I'll get to it next week.

-CreditFollowed up with our beef co-op. Our bag was 2lbs short last month, so they gave us a credit for this month. I followed up to make sure they don't forget to apply the credit.

Went to the thrift store in search of cooler clothing – it's been 100° or better every day for I don't remember how many days now, and I'm dying. So, my favorite cheap thrift store was having a half-price sale for the 4th. I ended up with basically a new summer wardrobe for $3.50. Two pairs of pants and five shirts.

Last night: Did not buy Stadium of Fire tickets. Rode my bike up to the stadium around 9. Brought a huge homemade frappucino (milk, ice, and torani syrup). Found a place to sit where I could hear Tim McGraw, and see most of the stage through one of the stadium corner entryways. Watched fireworks. Had a better seat than anybody in the bleachers for most of them, since they shoot them from outside the stadium. And still had a really good view of the ones they shot from the stage. Hopped on my bike and rode home once it was over. Was home in 8 minutes, as opposed to more than an hour if I had driven and gotten stuck in the traffic.

Tomorrow: Running the 10k before the parade. Free entry through work. I might even watch the parade afterwards. Free entertainment.

We had a friend stay all weekend. We were out and about doing things (voting, using up free movie tickets, etc), but didn't eat out. We managed to plan all activities around being home to cook and eat, and even used up a few freezer ingredients in the process.